metalic materials appear black \ no reflections on glass

Development Rendering
1

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hello everyone,

i am an architect student and i have recently picked up unreal engine 4 ( version 4.8 , for mac ) i have been doing tutorials and learning the program.

however , i have a problem with any metallic material they don’t seem to render and appear black even when placed outdoor.

i also have a problem with reflections my materials are not picking up reflection as shown in the image i attached , as a result my glass windows seem very flat and un realistic ( yes i have placed reflections sphere)

any help to fix the metallic material and reflections to become realistic would be greatly appreciated as this is really frustrating me.

thank you.

2

Are they within range of a lightmass importance volume?

3

i haven’t placed a light mass importance volume in this level , it was a learning level . do i need one for it to show ?.

sorry if this is a newbie question , im still new :blush:

4

I think this might be the problem. the lightmass importance volume must cover your scene. It tells the engine where the light calculation is important. When an object isn’t lit, it’s impossible to see it’s properties, like roughness, reflectivity etc. Put one in the scene and adjust it so it covers the whole scene and you should see your metal materials looks decent. Build your level for even greater results.

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i put both a light mass importance and post process volume , i can see now some detail however it’s still very dark and i have alot of lighting inside :s

i also can’t seem to get alot of features working such as glass reflection , lens flare and motion blur .

i have my setting to epic and i enabled blood and everything which seem to work but this is quite frustrating :s.

6

Are you 100% sure that you have set your scalability settings to epic? -> on the pic’s it looks like they are on “low” :slight_smile:

7

yes i have checked the scalability multiple time as i was told that some effects such as lens flare won’t even appear unless it’s on epic.

i checked it and all field are on epic ( epic is highlighted in red . )

i have even tried to set on medium and see differences and there are very little difference , like the glass sculpture would have minor details .

i have loaded the basic starter level from the starter content and i have compared it to the tutorial i was watching in the tutorial there was lens flare , motion blur and all around more detail . so i don’t understand why i am lacking a lot of these effects , quality is still good but it’s frustrating me :frowning:

8

I have the same problem with UE4 for Mac Os, with the Windows version, the materials look perfect.